ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS AFFECTING BUILDING MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS IN SELECTED ZONES OF SNNPRS, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Proper maintenance management has significant impact on the life span of buildings. It is crucial for delivering a better-built environment for the customers. In contrast, the lack of attention to maintenance management may lead to deterioration of buildings and reduced their services. Developing and implementing effective maintenance management in an organization will provide solution to these problems. Therefore, the study focused on assessing factors affecting maintenance management on selected public hospital buildings, identify and analyse the current practices and operational state in maintenance management process and determine strategies for improving building maintenance management. In achieving these objectives, the knowledge and opinions of maintenance staff, management staff and zonal construction department engineers of selected public hospital buildings were sampled through structured questionnaires. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, relative importance index and severity index analysis. The findings shown that most public hospitals have adopted corrective and condition-based maintenance approaches for their maintenance works. The analysis also revealed that sewerage systems, toilet facilities, doors, plumbing/water pipe, and electrical installations were identified the most encountered problems in public hospital buildings. Lack of maintenance policy, inadequate budget for maintenance programme, failure to execute maintenance at the right time, and lack of experienced and well-trained building maintenance personnel were identified as the most important factors responsible for poor maintenance management performance of public hospital buildings in the study areas. In this study top five the most significant strategies for improving maintenance management performance are identified: sufficient budget allocation, top management commitment, maintenance management performance assessment, planning and scheduling building maintenance and training of maintenance personnel. Based on the results of the study, proactive measures are recommended to reduce the occurrence of defects in the building elements and services. The maintenance department and top management of the hospitals must be able to identify these potential factors/problems at the preliminary stage and prioritize maintenance as the primary focus to guarantee sustainable building performance and cost-effectiveness.